Commentary/T V R Shenoy
Hastings, Bentinck and the thugs of today
I have not been driving myself around too much of late, enjoying
the luxury of being chauffeured around town. Now, cabbies -- like
bartenders -- are proverbially free with their opinion. One grey-beard
was vociferous on the subject of 50 years of independent India.
"Isse achha," was his considered opinion,
"Angrez hi the!" Which loosely translates as
"The British Raj was better."
Let's face it, all of us have heard that sentiment. And a look
at the headlines on almost any given day will tell us why. Where,
as a man with a taste for history, may exclaim, are the Hastings
and the Bentincks of yesterday?
Hastings and Bentinck who? They were governor-generals of India
over a century and a half ago. And certain things they did are
worth recalling in the day of Inspector Abhay Singh.
Inspector Singh, as you may recall, was the policeman from Delhi
who took on a dacoit gang as his train passed through Bihar. He
didn't need to do so, as he was, quite literally, passing through.
It wasn't his beat, but he acted anyway. And he got shot for it.
Every Indian bows down to Abhay Singh's courage. He lived up to
his name ('Abhay' means 'the fearless one'.).
Yet I fear our heads will drop further yet -- in shame, not in
respect -- as we consider our lords and masters...
Neither the Union government nor that of Bihar is willing to accept
an ounce of responsibility for the breach of law and order. (One
of many, I could add.)
Ram Vilas Paswan, railway minister and a Bihari to boot, cheerfully
stated that the security of the Indian Railways was the responsibility
of the states. Laloo Prasad Yadav, chief minister of Bihar and
hero of the 'secular forces', was having none of it.
To which Paswan blandly replied that his party president was just
plain wrong.
As a tennis fan I appreciate the fine art of rallying as much
as the next person. But what was graceful in a McEnroe is merely
obscene in this context. Putting the ball in somebody else's court
isn't going to make life any more secure for travellers in Bihar.
(Leave alone the citizens of the state!)
At this point, you may wonder what connection, if any, there is
between Inspector Abhay Singh and the peers of the realms mentioned
earlier. Simple -- they were the kind of bosses who would have
truly appreciated men of his calibre.
In 1817, Lord Hastings undertook what is now called the Pindari
War. I have heard some bleeding-hearts speak of the Pindaris as
patriots who look up arms against the East India Company. This
is wonderfully woolly-headed and amusing. But history shouldn't
be written by P G Wodehouse!
'They were men,' writes a chronicler of the period, 'of all lands and religions.'
(How beautifully secular!)
'They generally avoided pitched battles,' says another
historian, 'and plunder was their principal object, for
which they perpetrated horrible cruelties on all whom they could
get hold of.'
Lord Hastings, no bleeding heart he, destroyed the Pindaris with
scientific precision. It look him over 100,000 men to bring peace
to the badlands. But the job was finished in a matter of months.
And so efficiently that the Pindaris have never since been a menace
to law and limb.
Thirty years later it was the turn of another group to face the wrath
of a grim reformer. Lord Bentinck, the governor general who made
sati illegal, set out to crush the Thugs.
Boasting an ancestry far older then the Pindaris, this quasi-religions
group had been killing and stealing with utter abandon for centuries.
It took Bentinck several years to crush them. But by 1837 the
Thugs had ceased to be a factor.
It is relevant to note that Bentinck's officers ruefully noted
that the Thugs were often sided by powerful local chiefs. The
fact didn't, however, stop them from doing their duty.
They knew that their own boss would back them all the way. And
that is where the policemen of today fall short.
How many members of the Bihar police can be secure that their
masters won't betray them? Or, come to that, those of Uttar Pradesh,
a state which the Union home minister prophesied as heading for
'chaos, anarchy, and destruction'?
Woefully few, I'll wager, perhaps none. It didn't take the Vohra
Committee report for honest policemen to accept that a 'criminal
politician nexus' is a fact of life.
I can accept that there may be policemen as courageous as Abhay
Singh in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh too. (The Delhi police inspector
too was a Bihari.) But everyone knows the likely fate of any lawman
foolish enough to take on the mafia.
The crusade against crime -- violent or white collar -- must begin
at the top. What it boils down to is political will and honesty.
Bentinck and Hastings had them. Their subordinates could rest assured
that neither man would be bribed or threatened. (Why didn't other
governors-general act equally decisively?)
For 50 years we have been taught that the British cared for nothing
but looting India. Of course, this is true to a very large extent.
But not entirely. Some also held a thought for the men and women
they ruled. That seems to be much more than I can say of the buck-
passers of today.
My cabby had probably never heard of the Thugs and the Pindaris -- a
testimony of sorts to Hastings and Bentinck. But had he come across
those words, I think he would have used them. If not on the men
who took Abhay Singh's life, then certainly on, the lords and
masters of independent India!
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